A blog on philanthropy and nonprofit news and issues. A publication of Philanthropy Journal.

June 10, 2013

‘Do something’: Reciprocal giving exceeds bike-a-thon expectations

Special to Philanthropy Journal

Ken
Brack

Well
before donning my riding shoes for the Pan-Mass
Challenge bike-a-thon, I had anticipated being wowed by a spirit of goodwill.
But setting out to ride for the first time in the country’s most successful
sports philanthropy event, I could not have estimated how much participants
from every angle would lift each other in support of cancer research.

Taking
individual action is certainly vital. But what feels even better is joining a
cause, a collective that makes such a profound difference in people’s lives.

In
this case, fundraising for Boston’s Dana-Farber
Cancer Institute helps to sustain patient care and promising yet so-called
fringe research that the center otherwise could not afford. Everyone showing up
at the Pan-Mass Challenge finds this mission reinforced by many others who have
their own connections to loved ones and disease. There is a compelling unity
and an ethos that reinvigorates itself each year on main streets and back
roads.

Ken
Brack participates in the 2012 Pan-Mass Challenge.

Both
as a rider in 2012 and as an observer the previous year, I also felt a quality
of reciprocal giving that exceeds typical expectations of charity
participation.

During
PMC weekend, as the event in early August is known, and throughout months of
preparations, people from all walks of life inspire each other to reach
extraordinary levels. Together they replenish the cause: whether patients or
cancer survivors, volunteers acting in remembrance or friendship, wanna-be
weekend warriors, or kids handing out drinks at rest stops. There are also some
riders and donors who earmark their contributions to specific types of
research, playing an even more direct role in forging of new cures.

Even
with the tough economy of recent years, the contributions of PMC riders grew
while those of many other athletic fundraising events shrank or stalled. The
event raised a record $37 million in 2012, for a total $375 million given to
Dana-Farber in 33 years. Between 2011-12, riders’ averages grew by $400 to
$6,900, well above a demanding $4,300 minimum fundraising required for the most
popular and longest routes

How
does the PMC and its network of thousands of donors accomplish this? I found
that while some of it has to do with a largely affluent, professional
demographic there’s something else at work here: riders’ creativity in
fundraising and their commitment to the cause.
Cancer strikes so many of us, and the PMC’s reputation as an iconic
event continues to grow both in and outside of New England. Yet perhaps there
are broader trends going on as well.

Paul
Schervish, a sociology professor at Boston College, has a way of describing
this willingness of donors and participants to shape outcomes, rather than just
reacting to society’s needs. Schervish calls it the reach of one’s “moral
biography.” He writes that many of today’s most generous philanthropists
combine a “personal capacity and moral compass.” They move from aspiring to
create change to closing the gaps as change agents themselves.

Going
further, Schervish, who directs the Center
on Wealth and Philanthropy at BC, finds that some of us move into
“hyperagency.” By that, he means an “institutional-building capacity” among
people who are capable at times of forming solutions – like funding research in
an era of research funding cutbacks.

I
contend this spirit is alive at events like the PMC. Not just in the executive
class or among faculty at the esteemed teaching hospitals as in Boston. It also
shines among carpet cleaners and bookkeepers, struggling college grads, clerks
and teachers, who also are PMC riders.

Shortly
before kicking off on our inaugural ride last summer, my wife and I chatted
with a woman in her mid-50s. We shared a quick makeshift breakfast inside a
tent at one of the starting hubs.

Along
with legions of others, she had a visceral stake in her charitable giving: a
friend who had recently succumbed to disease. “Riding,” she told us, “gives me
a chance to do something.”

Our
adrenaline was already beginning to spike. We, too, were about to do something.

Ken Brack is a nonfiction author and
journalist who lives in southeastern Massachusetts. His debut, Closer By The Mile, is being published this
month. Brack rode his first Pan-Mass Challenge in 2012 in memory of his mother,
who died of ovarian cancer in 1999. His forthcoming book, Unspeakable Gifts,
conveys the experiences of people climbing from catastrophic loss who transform
their lives to inspire others.